Seminars Being Offered on Minority and Women-Owned Business Growth Strategies

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., April 22, 2014 — The Institute for Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IRIE) at Southeast Missouri State University will present a two-part training seminar April 30 and July 31 to assist minority and women-owned businesses with growth strategies.

The seminar, Positioning, Planning & Profiting: A Life Cycle Approach to M/WBE Business Growthwill help minority and women-owned businesses identify where they fit in the business life cycle from start-up to becoming a publicly traded company. The seminars also will help these businesses identify important resources to support their growth at each phase.

The free seminars are scheduled for 8 to 11 a.m. in the Show Me Center at 1333 N. Sprigg Street in Cape Girardeau. Space is limited. Contact Glenna Ervin at gervin@semo.edu or call (573) 651-2929 to register.

The seminars will introduce minority and women business owners to characteristics and the mindset necessary to position them for growth. Participants also will learn about best practices that can help them identify and determine how to leverage their existing strategy to grow to the next level. This may be possible by either enhancing or reengineering their approach to business.

Growth of small businesses has been identified as a key source for future job creation. The seminars are being offered in support of developing small businesses in southeast Missouri.

The IRIE has formed a strategic partnership with The MMBC Continuum, as a result of an investment by the Delta Regional Authority (DRA) to support their initiative to impact the growth of minority and women-owned businesses in the DRA footprint. For more information about the partnership, contact Brian Tapp, director of Outreach, IRIE, at btapp@semo.edu or (573) 651-2304, or Natalie Robinson, vice president and director of communications and marketing for The MMBC Continuum, at nrobinson@mmbc-memphis.org or (901) 525-6512.

This seminar is co-hosted by the Institute for Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Southeast Missouri State University and The MMBC Continuum in Memphis, Tenn., through a strategic investment by the Delta Regional Authority. The MMBC Continuum is partnering with IRIE to grow minority and women-owned businesses in the Southeast Missouri region.

The Institute for Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Southeast Missouri State University is a division of the College of Business and serves as an economic outreach program for SEMO. IRIE addresses economic concerns by mobilizing resources of the University and other sources.

The Delta Regional Authority is a federal-state partnership that is congressionally mandated to help create jobs, build communities and improve lives in the 252 counties and parishes of the Delta.

The MMBC Continuum is an economic development agency in Memphis, Tenn., that developed a successful model focused on the growth of scalable minority and women-owned businesses with the capacity to meet the procurement needs of major corporations and create jobs.